It is common to create barriers to the transfer or propagation of acoustic energy (e.g. noise) from one location to another. Noise generated in one location may be unwanted and unwelcomed in an adjacent location. One common situation where it is desirable to control acoustic energy is in enclosed structures that house multiple groups of people such as multi-family residential and multi-tenant commercial buildings. Specifically, in a multi-family residential apartment building, condominium building, or hotel, occupants have expectations that they can enjoy the comfort of their residence, offices, and other such spaces without disturbances caused by noise generated by adjacent neighbors.
As will be understood, in a multi-family residential building, for example, noise can propagate from one apartment to an adjacent apartment through the walls separating apartments located on the same story of the building and through the floor/ceiling separating adjacent apartments located on different stories of the building. With regard to noise propagating through a floor/ceiling of adjacent apartments, the noise can be “air-borne” (which can be measured by standardized Sound Transmission Class testing) or caused by “impact” (which can be measured by standardized Impact Insulation Class testing). Air-borne noise is typically generated by occupants conversing, televisions, stereos, etc. Impact noise is typically generated by objects impacting the floor of one apartment and propagating to the apartment below. For example, items dropped on the floor, or occupants walking with hard-soled shoes on wood or tiled flooring can generate unwanted impact noise in the apartment below.
For current multi-occupant buildings, builders commonly use a cementitious underlayment product such as gypsum concrete (sometimes referred to as Gyp-Crete®) to create acoustic dampening between adjacent stories of the building. Cementitious underlayment products have some sound reduction properties; however, the use of cementitious underlayment products and other similar products pose significant challenges for builders. One significant issue is that such products are applied as a wet product (e.g., poured as a thick fluid onto a subfloor) into an otherwise dry environment (e.g., a wood framed building). When such a wet product is applied to a dry environment, the moisture can adversely affect the building process. Issues such as warping of wooden elements, splashing onto unintended surfaces, etc. are common. Furthermore, introducing moisture into any environment increases the chances of mold growth in the environment, which is always an unwanted condition. Another issue is that the application of any wet product typically requires a drying, curing, or setting period following the pouring or application of the wet product. Such periods can cause delays in construction and complicate the planning and project management between various contractors and workers. An additional issue with pouring processes such as applying cementitious underlayment products is that the pouring processes can be limited by weather conditions such as ambient temperature. Both high and low temperatures can negatively affect the pouring of cementitious underlayment products, and thus, create delays and unpredictability in the construction processes.
It would be advantageous to develop products, assemblies, systems and methods for facilitating the constructing the floor/ceiling structure of multi-occupant buildings that provide for acoustic controlling properties and overcome the limitations of using prior art techniques and products such as cementitious underlayment products.